I got up and the thermometer said 8F. When I checked later, it had gone up to a whopping 13F.

I got bundled up and started shoveling snow. I had to break it in to three sessions as it was just too cold. But, I managed to get it all shoveled off the driveway except for a small amount near the garage. I calculated I moved 16 tons of snow. That’s right 16 tons. No wonder I feel worn out.

The sun came out towards the end of the day, and so I took these photos…

Sunset from the Driveway

Front of the Beckwith Mansion

Kitchen Door

View of the 4 Churches from the Driveway

Front of the Beckwith Mansion

Snow Drifts on the Front Lawn

It’s so cold my fingers hurt. I need looser gloves. The tightness of my current gloves causes my fingers to feel colder and burn. And, it really ticks me off that I can’t find good mittens around here. All of them are gloves inside a mitten-like shell. The idea behind mittens is that the fingers give each other warmth.

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Got another campaign flyer from our congressman Dan Maffei. It really bothers me that tax payer money can be used by incumbent representatives to send out campaign material. It just seems wrong. So, I wrote him asking to be taken off his list so it will save us some budget money. But, something tells me the budget is more of a formality than it is a necessity for most of politicians. I say that because if it was important, we’d see a LOT of programs disappearing.

We also got our property tax bill. There was a sheet listing mandated budget items. The last 4 or 5 had to deal with criminals. Tax money for programs for criminals. The first one was for medicare. Several in the middle had to do with welfare services, and number 2 was for retirement funds (and I hope that is retirement for government workers and not politicians.)

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I find myself in that artist slump again. Part of it might be the effects of SAD. The other part of it is it’s hard to find good and willing subjects for some of my work. And, as to the latter, I think cell phones have made getting your picture taken too common. I’ve blogged about the effects of bad image overload. Hmmm… I think I’ll call it BIO. Anyway, I think people don’t appreciate good photography as much as they used to.